a. Field of the Invention:
The invention relates to land vehicles, and more particularly to a carriage movable atop trailer boxes for loading them, particularly with agricultural products.
b. Prior Art:
Previously, agricultural trailer boxes have been loaded by placing inclined walkways from a harvest area up into the rear edge of the trailer. Recognizing the severe demands on the strength of field workers to walk up an inclined walkway with a heavy load, others have devised motor powered conveyors which load trailers from ground level. When such conveyors fill one portion of the trailer box they are manually transported to another portion of the trailer until the trailer is loaded.
While the conveyors of the prior art alleviate part of the problem, they are usually manually moved from the ground from one part of the trailer to the next by someone who cannot see where the optimum location for the conveyor should be. To select an optimum location, another person must climb atop the trailer to direct the positioning of the conveyor. If the trailer is being pulled, this operation can only be safely carried out when the trailer comes to a stop. It is preferable to harvest large areas as fast as possible and to do this, trailer boxes are slowly driven through the harvest areas, approaching workers who deposit field products into the trailer boxes at momentary stops.
Another problem which arises is in transferring the conveyors from one trailer to another. If the conveyors have motors at the top, the transfer operation can easily demand the attention of two people. It is an object of the present invention to provide a trailer box loader system wherein conveyors for loading a trailer box can be moved to optimum loading positions by a single person while the trailer box is stopped or in motion, and which may be readily transferred from one trailer box to another.